A little less than a year ago I posted here about Apple’s official announcement that they would be supporting Passkeys beginning with iOS 16, macOS Ventura, etc. Passkeys are a password-less authentication scheme based on standards adopted by the FIDO Alliance, a non-profit organization seeking to standardize authentication and make traditional passwords obsolete.
In the earlier post I expressed my concerns that piecemeal adoption of Passkeys by big tech companies could create a new kind of "digital divide" - at least until the transition from a password-dependent world to a password-free world is complete.
Early adopters will embrace Passkeys, but everyday users are likely to lag behind. This could create a two-tiered future where the technically literate become safer and the not-so-techy users continue to be the victims of various kinds of online crime at disproportionate rates.
Part of the problem with this kind of transition is that many people will be reluctant to adopt new standards when some of the services and devices they depend on support them, but others don’t.
Most of the time I consider myself an early adopter, but I haven’t started using Passkeys yet. At this stage, at least for me, too few platforms and services support Passkeys.
I can’t predict when Passkey adoption by major hardware and software companies will reach the critical mass necessary to make them the default authentication method for everyone (or almost everyone) but today Google took a significant step toward bringing that day closer.
Starting today Google users can turn on Passkeys for their accounts. This is a BIG deal and a giant step forward toward a world without passwords.
Will you be using Passkeys with your Google account(s) moving forward?
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